


Happy Endings

by theWickedWitchofFeels



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Death, F/F, One-Shot, Sadness, fire in Belle's library, prompted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 01:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3917446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theWickedWitchofFeels/pseuds/theWickedWitchofFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a bit of an older one-shot, one of the first Swan Queen pieces I ever wrote. </p><p>Written with the prompt: </p><p>After trying to escape a catastrophe, imagine your OTP giving up and dying in each other’s arms while confessing their feelings for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Endings

“Regina!”

Emma stumbled through the haze of smoke and flame, so thick she could hardly breathe, and when she did manage to draw a breath in was in the midst of painful coughing that left her retching on the ground. Her eyes burned with more than just the smoke, but the flames made tears impossible, and she had no time to waste on crying. She had to find - 

She stumbled over something on the floor, something that gave beneath her foot. She collapsed next to it, her hands grasping desperately, randomly, until something warm and familiar closed over them. 

“Swan.” Regina gasped, her eyelids fluttering open weakly and her lovely dark eyes finding Emma’s. “You - came for me?”

“I couldn’t just leave you in here,” Emma panted, draping one of Regina’s arms around her shoulders and stumbling to her feet. But she was too weak - with a cry of pain from both women, they collapsed together even as the heat grew ever more intense. 

“It was Mr Gold,” Regina panted. “He - the vindictive bastard that he is - he exacted revenge for what Belle did to him. I saw him briefly in here but he poofed away. He put some spell over this place to keep me from doing the same, and by that time it was too late anyway.” 

“You’re gonna be okay Regina, I’m gonna get us out of here -” Emma cast about desperately for a way out, but the library was a veritable hotspot, what with the stock of books it held, many very old and extremely flammable. They were cowered in a corner of it that the flames had not yet reached, some yards away from the nearest bookshelf. Emma could just barely hear the yells of the townspeople outside. It was very nearly too late; had been from the moment the books caught, really.

She closed her eyes briefly, looking back down at Regina. The former Evil Queen was nothing more than a woman now, coughing and retching in abject agony as the smoke inhalation took its toll. 

“H-Henry-” Regina rasped. 

“I left him with Mary Margaret,” Emma told her, helping her to sit up. They were so close that Emma might have thought it suggestive had they not been about to die. As it was, it simply felt right.

“Thank you - thank -” Regina’s words died away into more coughing. She was having too much difficulty breathing. Emma could barely draw breath anymore, and her body was terribly weak. She grasped Regina’s chin, staring into her eyes.

“Stay with me,” she murmured. “Don’t fall asleep, I’m right here, focus on me.”

“I never told you, Emma, but after Robin left-” Regina coughed, feebler this time. “I...it took me too long to realize, but I do now...I never needed to find the Author. Because my happy ending was right in front of me the entire time.”

Her deep, dark umber eyes stared into Emma’s. “I love you, Emma Swan.” 

Emma felt a jolt from somewhere deep within her. It might have been her heart. Impulsively, she leaned forward and pressed her chapped, burning lips to Regina’s equally dry ones. 

Regina’s breathing slowed. “I must say, I could’ve grown to like this heroic crap.” Her eyes closed, and she drew one final rasping breath. 

Emma blinked at her. “Regina. Regina!”

She pressed her ear desperately to Regina’s chest, but there was no more sound of breath. The last thing she knew was lying there, intertwined with the woman she had once called enemy, but who had come to mean something else entirely. 

Her happy ending.


End file.
